


The Winter Soldier

by starling



Category: Captain America (2011), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2012-08-21
Packaged: 2017-11-12 15:20:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starling/pseuds/starling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of Bucky Barnes, the story of the Winter Soldier, the story of Bucky Barnes again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Winter Soldier

Steve’s stretching out a hand and I see a flash of his mouth moving, but I’m falling and falling and there’s nothing left but the wind, a vicious icy roar that surrounds me until I am blind and dead and screaming but it doesn’t matter at all- it doesn’t matter what he’s saying except that he’s alive to say it.

Falling -

the world needs Captain America more than it needs Bucky Barnes, I’d decided long ago -

falling -

but I gave my life for Steve Rogers, for my friend -

falling -

and I’d do it again -

thud.

Oh.  

First there is the pain, an agonising crunch as my body begins to fall apart.  My skin feels wet from blood, my bones on fire with pain, my limbs twisted into unnatural shapes.  

I can think.  I can do this.  I slice off the thinnest part of myself, and hold it above the pain to allow myself to think - a trick well practiced when I was a prisoner.  I register that I am alive, though surely dying.

Hydra used me as a test subject.  I have been a good soldier the past few months - perhaps too good.  Maybe I should have seen this coming.

The experiments changed me, and I am alive.

I am at the bottom of a frozen valley, presumed dead, in the middle of a war.  I will die here.

No.  I can hold on.  Steve will come for me.  He will know, somehow, the way his feet led him to me when I was helplessly strapped to a table with the sounds of escape ringing through my ears.  He will find me.

I try to move, but none of my limbs will respond.  I find that I can blink, and little else besides.  

I cough, and sharp spikes of pain rack through my chest.

“Steve,” I say out loud.  I can speak.

My foot hurts, as much as the rest, and I wiggle a toe.

I have been spared complete paralysis, then.

I wait an hour, and try again.  

I cannot move.

I feel myself sinking into the snow.

Steve will come for me.

I can’t feel my body any more.  The pain might still be there, but my mind has become numb to it.  Perhaps I am healing.

The snow begins to pile up.

I do not have the strength to blink it away, and soon it blinds me.

“Steve!” I call, but the snow catches in my mouth and I close it hurriedly.

The weight of the snow becomes great, and soon I know that even if I could move, it would be a monumental task to reach the surface.  

It is impossible to tell in this darkness, but days must be passing.

Steve will come for me.

Steve will not be able to find me.

This high up in the mountains, there is no thaw, no merciful summer to await.

Steve will never find me.

I could lie here forever - unmoved, unmoving, unremembered.

This mockery of existence, dark and cold and still - I can no longer call it life.

I died for Steve, then; as I knew that I would.

I’d do it again.

For the kid from Brooklyn who never knew when to give up.

For the kid who got beaten up in back alleys because he spoke up to defend his country.

For the kid who ran away from a date to try to join the army, again.

What was he thinking, anyway?  I told him it was dangerous, that he was lucky to escape the draft.  That there was good work to be done back home.

Idiot.  Stupid, brave, impossible Steve, who never let his own weakness stand in the way of anything.

Who was always charging in like a hero against impossible odds, and leaving me to chase off the bullies and pick up the pieces and wipe away the blood.

Leaving me to die this frozen death, because he had to be a superhero and I had to protect that.

I died because of Steve.

My body has adjusted to the cold, it feels.  The numbness has vanished - that is my miracle, Hydra’s gift.  The pain has returned, along with a sharp spike of hunger in my stomach that I can do nothing about.

I’m like him now, I suppose.  The strength, the speed, the healing.  

I could have been Captain America.

Bucky Barnes could have been good enough after all.

But Steve killed me.

I lie, suspended in darkness and pain, for so long.

I begin to lose myself.

No -

remember that I am Bucky -

I am a soldier in the US Army, in the 107th -

remember Steve, my friend -

I cannot bear to forget.

I must not forget.

The snow turns to ice.

My blood turns to ice.

My thoughts turn to ice.

I forget.  

\- - -

I do not wake up.

I never had the joy of sleeping.

I emerge.

I regain movement and I regain speech and I regain sight.

I do not thaw.

A man speaks to me, and the sound of his voice is like a blessing.  He heals my wounds and brings me food, and I cooperate in mute thankfulness.

I do not understand his language, but he teaches me, in time.  Others come, bringing precious knowledge with them.  I am hungry for every scrap of knowledge that I can gain, of this world which is so strange to me, but the hunger turns to sickness soon enough.  The world seems too warm for me, too bright, too new.  

I tell them that I do not know who I am.

They tell me who it is that I am to be.

I am a soldier.  That is what they build from my gratitude.

I owe them my life.

I owe them my loyalty.

They train me, and I do not take long to surpass all of my teachers.

I fight for them, I kill for them, if it came down to that I would die for them.

It does not come down to that.  I’m very good at my job.

I fight, and I win, and then they put me to sleep until I am needed again.  I was born from ice, and I am happy to return to ice.  That’s what I’m for.  

They call me the Winter Soldier.

I wake up one morning to discover the USSR collapsed.  I have my new masters, though - I have been sold on.  I am a valuable weapon, after all.  My new masters are much the same as the old ones, and I am treated well.

There are distractions, of course.  Indulgences.  Nat, who’s beautiful like a knife and who kills like she was born for it.  She tells me that my name is James, and I hold on to the knowledge like a talisman. I learn something of humanity from her, but we both suffer for it, and when one day I wake up to find that she has left for SHIELD, I move on.  We're better off apart.

I’m in the USA.  Something about the country unsettles me, like I stand out more than I ought to.  I do my job, though, and I’m close to victory when he arrives.

His name is Captain America.  His name is famous - the war hero has returned from the dead, and he is an Avenger.  I have been warned that he is a potential threat.

He looks at me like he knows me.

He doesn’t know me.

He can’t.

He’s just another superhero, the same as the rest.

This shouldn’t be different.

This shouldn’t be difficult.

I’m close to victory.

I’m very good at my job.

I freeze for a moment, lost in this sudden confusion.  There’s the briefest flash of a thought, that flits in and out of my mind so fast I almost miss it.

This man killed me.

It cannot be true.  I have not been killed.  I do not know this man.

Still, though.  His arms are strong and his fists are clenched, but his eyes are wide and soft and frightened, and I see him hesitate.

Maybe there is a memory there.  Something that I can use.

“You killed me,” I say, spitting it out with as much hurt and anger as I can muster.  He reels back as though he has been struck.

It only takes him a moment to recover his senses, but it only takes a moment for the Winter Soldier to escape, mission accomplished.

I’m very good at my job.

\- - -

“Remember who you are,” he says, and his face is lit up with hope.  The Cosmic Cube in his hands, and he chooses to grant me the gift of my memory?

I am the Winter Soldier, I think.  James. The Winter Soldier. I know who I am.

What’s he doing?  

The man who killed me -

because -

because -

I died for him -

I fell for him -

I froze for him -

I chose it, I chose it freely, I’d do it again -

because he’s Steve -

my friend -

the kid from Brooklyn who couldn’t pick his fights -

who joined the army and grew into a legend -

who was already a hero -

and Nat was right, I'm James, but I'm more than that, I'm _Bucky_ -

he was my friend -

I was a soldier -

I was warm and kind and happy and American -

I was so much less than the Winter Soldier -

and so much more -

and I have allowed myself to be passed between the hands of monsters -

killing innocents in their service -

and it’s all too much -

I can’t -

I won’t -

I shouldn’t have -

I never meant to forget -

but -

but -

I did -

It’s a curse, his ‘gift’.  

Everything I know has been reduced to a nightmare, and I am forced to face the reality of a past life that seems no more substantial than a dream.

I disappear.  I can’t face Steve, can’t face what I’ve done.  Not yet.

I cover my tracks.  I hide from Steve, from SHIELD, from my former employers.  

I have only just remembered that America is my home, but I cannot stay here.  They would find me.  

I go to London, armed with a false name and little else.  The city conceals me.

I drink.  I sleep.  I cry, more than I like to admit.

I cannot sustain it for long.  

I reacquaint myself with the world.  I finally acquire some poorly-paid work in a café, and I feed the same stray cat twice a day, and I befriend the bartender at the local pub.  

I pretend that this is my life, and I am surprised to learn how well I have made it fit me.

I am living on borrowed time, and I know it.

I am walking home from meeting ‘Rebecca’ for a drink, a brilliantly witty woman.  Teacher, singer, dog person, lesbian - there had been a misunderstanding, but it had been entertaining rather than awkward, for which I was thankful.  The night is bright and clear, and I can even make out some scattered stars above my head.  I’m happier than I’ve been in a long, long time.

“Help!” I hear a call.  “Somebody help!”

There’s a shameful instinct to run - protect yourself, don’t interfere, don’t take the risk.  The job comes first, and right now my job is survival, in cognito. London has its own heroes now - where's Brian Braddock when you need him?

There's still a man screaming out there.  What if he’s unarmed and innocent and outnumbered?  What if he’s helpless and facing impossible odds?  What if he dies because of me, because I was a coward?

The Winter Soldier wants to run, but James and Bucky and Mark Andrews all know that there's not even really a choice to be made.

I run towards the sound.  There are four men, and one has his hand across another’s mouth, muffling his cry for help.  Another man is advancing with a vicious looking knife.

Three men.  Ordinary men.  I can take them.

I do take them.

It happens very quickly, and I’m almost out of practice enough to lose, but the struggle ends with one man unconscious on the floor with a blow to the head, me holding a knife, and the other two assailants looking at each other before making a run for it.  They've seen what I can do.

I turn to the man who had shouted, and note that he’s already wounded in his arm.  He has a phone in his hand, and he’s rattling off the street name to the emergency services.  I suppose it was a long shot that I would be able to leave here without having to give my name.

“Thanks,” I say, pressing a hand to a wound on my head.  I rip off the sleeves of my jacket, and make us both makeshift bandages to keep pressure on our injuries.

He keeps glancing nervously at the unconscious man on the ground, as though he knows him.  What kind of mess has this kid got himself mixed up in?  

His name is James, I learn, and I'm not naive enough to give in to the urge introduce myself as the same.  He’s seventeen years old, and the man on the ground is - was - his friend.  There was a misunderstanding about something, and he clearly doesn’t want me to pry so I drop it.

We go to the hospital together, and he tells me about his grandmother - her fierceness, her false teeth, the television she watches.  I tell him about Rebecca, and he laughs so hard that he almost cries.  

I become something of a local hero, once details start to leak into the papers.  I have no regrets, of course, but there is a little sadness there.  I cannot be ordinary.  I cannot hide myself.

Steve would come for me - I always knew that.  Someone points him to me before long, once my face is plastered across the front page of The Sun.  

It’s early in the morning, and I’ve just left my flat on the way to work.  It’s January, and the sun is just rising, and the sky is lit up with the colours of the dawn.  

And there he is, standing on the pavement outside my building.  Waiting.

For a moment I consider running for it, but I dismiss it almost instantly.  He knows my face, he found my address, he’s - he’s Steve.  I can’t run any more - it’s all over.

“Steve,” I say.  

“Bucky,” he replies, one corner of his mouth turning up.

We are interrupted by terrorists, something I didn't see coming.

I don’t know them, but clearly Steve does.  There’s ten or twelve of them, dressed in matching dark outfits - superheroes are all the range these days, and apparently even the bad guys got the style memo.  They rush out of nowhere, and jump on Steve, but they’ve underestimated us if they think it will be that easy.

After all these years, we still fight as a unit.  I know his mind, he knows mine, and we make short work of them without a single civilian casualty.  He’s magnificent as ever, strong and fast and fearless, and this time I wonder if maybe I’m a little magnificent as well. 

When it is over, the two of us stand together, a little out of breath.  A crowd of bystanders has gathered, and someone must have called the police because I can hear a distant siren.

It feels good, working with him like that again, but I am not what I was.  I was the Winter Soldier, and even Steve cannot be so forgiving as to let that go.

“Steve,” I say again, helplessly, and he pulls me into a hug.  

"I thought you were dead," he says.

"I thought you were smaller," I echo, smiling. 

He offers to take me home, but I've the feeling that I'm already there.

This is not an ending, I think to myself, as the two of us stand there laughing with relief.  This is a beginning.


End file.
